My 3s team has gone from fun to painful since the patch came out, I play RLS. I'm not claiming this is a bad comp, it is actually great but the average teams we're queueing into are giving me a ridiculous amount of headaches. The length of our games range from charge stun duration against warriors to 12-20 minutes vs most others. My damage is weak and I feel like it's causing our games to be drawn out.

So feeling useless I decided to spend a lot of gold respecing, regemming and buying shit off the auction house. I've been playing with 3/3 bane (.5 Shadow Bolt cast reduction) and with an Eradication proc it is definitely possible to get a Shadow Bolt off (1.8 with Eradication). You can stack up Shadow Embrace fairly quick with a haunt + SB and a Night Fall proc and this also provides a bit of burst when you need it, chaining a Soul Burned Drain Life off of a hard cast Shadow Bolt with dots ticking can easily cause 18-20k spike damage which is about as much as a rogues first global of the game so that's cool.

Yesterday something incredible happened, I had Power Torrent, Darkmoon Card: Volcano, Synapse Springs and Demon Soul all up at the same time (10800 spell power). I began to recite verses from the Kings James version of the Bible backwards in Latin and soul swapped a line of dots onto a priest and 13 seconds later his Power Word: Shield was broken, incredible. He quickly reapplied the Shield which made me feel especially good because he felt threatened at 94%.

I'm not sure if I am going to keep playing with this spec because every time we fight some raging juggernaut of excellence that trinkets Death Coil it becomes impossible to get the cast off.

Yesterday something incredible happened, I had Power Torrent, Darkmoon Card: Volcano, Synapse Springs and Demon Soul all up at the same time (10800 spell power). I began to recite verses from the Kings James version of the Bible backwards in Latin and soul swapped a line of dots onto a priest and 13 seconds later his Power Word: Shield was broken, incredible. He quickly reapplied the Shield which made me feel especially good because he felt threatened at 94%.

Yesterday something incredible happened, I had Power Torrent, Darkmoon Card: Volcano, Synapse Springs and Demon Soul all up at the same time (10800 spell power). I began to recite verses from the Kings James version of the Bible backwards in Latin and soul swapped a line of dots onto a priest and 13 seconds later his Power Word: Shield was broken, incredible. He quickly reapplied the Shield which made me feel especially good because he felt threatened at 94%.

When 4.1 hits you'll reclaim your normal place as the #1 caster in the game.

only because of fear and our defense. nothing about being the #1 caster will make us fun to play again. until we get ua dispel dmg up to no less then 30k dmg on 4k resil targets along with our dots ticking for decent amounts that actually aren't negated by a simple aoe heal or self heal, then and only then will our class become fun again.

So feeling useless I decided to spend a lot of gold respecing, regemming and buying shit off the auction house. I've been playing with 3/3 bane (.5 Shadow Bolt cast reduction) and with an Eradication proc it is definitely possible to get a Shadow Bolt off (1.8 with Eradication). You can stack up Shadow Embrace fairly quick with a haunt + SB and a Night Fall proc and this also provides a bit of burst when you need it, chaining a Soul Burned Drain Life off of a hard cast Shadow Bolt with dots ticking can easily cause 18-20k spike damage which is about as much as a rogues first global of the game so that's cool.

Yesterday something incredible happened, I had Power Torrent, Darkmoon Card: Volcano, Synapse Springs and Demon Soul all up at the same time (10800 spell power). I began to recite verses from the Kings James version of the Bible backwards in Latin and soul swapped a line of dots onto a priest and 13 seconds later his Power Word: Shield was broken, incredible. He quickly reapplied the Shield which made me feel especially good because he felt threatened at 94%.

I'm not sure if I am going to keep playing with this spec because every time we fight some raging juggernaut of excellence that trinkets Death Coil it becomes impossible to get the cast off.

So what have you guys been doing to create more pressure?

Speccing 3/3 Bane isn't a great choice imo. Casting Shadowbolt in arena really isn't viable, and even if there was a window to cast it, your time would be much better spent putting up more dots or fearing someone.

Even with those talents DrainLife is still better i think. It may work out to about the same damage but casting DL over SB will get you more nightfall procs.

Also getting halfway through a SB cast then having a melee-interrupt class come towards you, forcing you to juke or stop casting nets you zero damage. But casting only half or 2/3 of a DL then stopping the cast nets you at least SOME damage.

Speccing 3/3 Bane isn't a great choice imo. Casting Shadowbolt in arena really isn't viable, and even if there was a window to cast it, your time would be much better spent putting up more dots or fearing someone.

Yeah the time probably is usually better spent fearing/dotting

Even with those talents DrainLife is still better i think. It may work out to about the same damage but casting DL over SB will get you more nightfall procs.

Also getting halfway through a SB cast then having a melee-interrupt class come towards you, forcing you to juke or stop casting nets you zero damage. But casting only half or 2/3 of a DL then stopping the cast nets you at least SOME damage.

I think Shadow Bolt does a bit more damage than Drain Life, I didn't consider the DL procing Nightfall though. good point.

As far as getting interrupted, it's no different than a mage casting a frostbolt, it requires timing and a bit of setup but it's doable. I agree 2/3 DL ticks is better than a half way interrupted SB though ^^

I'm probably going to spec out of this next time I get on my lock it's just something I was playing around with after being frustrated and I was wondering if any of you have looked into different ways to put out more pressure.

After the warrior from my WLP left and went to play double healer I decided to level my DK and my Warrior. Now that they have gear I am working on my rogue too. Watching my dots get spam dispelled and warriors doing a full rows worth of dot damage in one global have taken the fun out of this game for me. Before all of this I tried out the SB spec and using a PvE trinket for more pressure but it was hardly noticeable. Now I just sit and hope for the day that we get our pressure back and it is actually fun to play the Warlock class again.

I think Shadow Bolt does a bit more damage than Drain Life, I didn't consider the DL procing Nightfall though. good point.

As far as getting interrupted, it's no different than a mage casting a frostbolt, it requires timing and a bit of setup but it's doable. I agree 2/3 DL ticks is better than a half way interrupted SB though ^^

I'm probably going to spec out of this next time I get on my lock it's just something I was playing around with after being frustrated and I was wondering if any of you have looked into different ways to put out more pressure.

i also find it easier to fake people using a channeled spell as opposed to a casted spell.